by Mike Busch | Aug 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Why aren’t A&Ps trained as well as pilots are? I never really wanted to become an A&P. All I really wanted was to be able to maintain my own airplane without adult supervision. Heck, I’d been doing virtually all the maintenance of my 1979 Cessna Turbo...
by Joe Godfrey | Jul 13, 2019 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
I have written about this before, but not in two years, and with lots of new clients and a couple of new Savvy services in that time, it seemed like a good time for a biennial review. The comedians are fond of saying, “Timing is everything.” I think the quality of the...
by Mike Busch | Jul 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When things go awry in the sky, litigation isn’t necessarily the best remedy. My email inbox contained a message with the subject “Legal Question – Advice Needed.” That didn’t surprise me because although I’m not a lawyer, I do regularly participate in aviation...
by Joe Godfrey | Jun 15, 2019 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
The US stock market volatility index is sometimes called the fear index. Usually when the VIX is spiking to new highs, investors are bailing out and other indexes are tumbling. We had one of these events last last year – after a jittery October and November,...
by Mike Busch | Jun 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Understanding aircraft insurance If you own an aircraft, you probably have aircraft insurance. Whether it’s the right amount of the right coverages is worth exploring. Here’s what I’ve learned in my 50+ years of aircraft ownership plus extensive discussions with...
by Joe Godfrey | May 21, 2019 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
I grew up in a river town – Cincinnati – then moved to a lake town – Chicago – and then to an ocean town – Encinitas, CA just north of San Diego. I just started listening to David McCullough’s new book The Pioneers and was happy to...
by Mike Busch | May 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Before doing something expensive or invasive, slow down “My Cirrus SR22’s oil pressure has been slowly decreasing,” reported Oliver, one of my company’s managed maintenance clients. “At full power the pressure used to be 41-43 PSI, but over the past three months it...
by Joe Godfrey | Apr 23, 2019 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
These days it’s call throwing shade. When I came up, good jazz musicians had a nice-but-direct way of telling wanna be jazz musicians that they weren’t up to the task – “don’t give up your day gig.” Dr. Graeme Smart has a day gig...
by Mike Busch | Apr 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Not preheating a cold engine is a effective way to damage it Preheating is important. A single cold start without proper preheating can produce more wear on your engine in less than a minute than 500 hours of normal cruise operation I’m often asked how cold it...
by Joe Godfrey | Mar 18, 2019 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
I have been flying my Bellanca Viking for 29 years now. I have had two unexplained events – one electrical and one combustion – both in day VMC. I was alone for both. The electrical event was on approach to a central California airport with a tower. I had...
